I just did this really quickly.... But I think there actually is an avenue the Avs could go in, that would allow them to re-sign Kadri and have the cap space to do so.
Basically if the Avs believe Meyers can be the 3C at training camp next year, they could afford Kadri back...
- Nuke at 6x5.5M
- Lehkonen at 2x3.5M
- Cogliano at 2x800k
- Helm at 1x800k
- Johnson at 1x800k
- Husso at 3x3.333M
- Kadri at 5x7M
- Calvin De Haan at 1x1.5M
Landy - Mack - Nuke
Lehky - Kadri - Rantanen
JTC - Meyers - Newhook
LOC - Helm - Cogliano
Sedlak
Toews - Makar
Byram - Girard
CDH - EJ
Johnson - MacDermid
Husso
Francouz
That roster would actually have about $1.75M in cap space as well. Plenty of room to accumulate space throughout the season and make another big push at next years deadline.
Basically just promoting Lehky to the Top 6 replacing Burakovsky, and slotting Meyers in the 3rd line in Lehkonen's spot. Then the Avs can evaluate how Meyers has done at 3C and decide if that's an area they want to improve for the playoffs or not.
In other words, signing Kadri depends on:
- Nichuskin taking less than $6m;
- Avs going short-term with Lehkonen;
- Husso taking a cheap deal with the Avs; and
- Kadri settling for less than 6-7 years and under $7.5m.
Not sure if any of those things happen. I guess if you allocate some of that extra $1.75m to Nichuskin and Lehkonen to get them up to $6m and $4m and give Kadri another year it might happen; but you'd still be counting on Husso giving you a bit of a discount and even signing with the Avs to begin with.
That all said the more I think about it the more appealing it is to just re-sign Kadri. He's going to tail off in a couple of years, but as long as you avoid NTC and also front load it a bit you can probably get out of that contract down the road while still getting another 2-3 good years out of him. The 2C market is just not great right now so that might be the Avs best solution to stay as contenders next year.